Personal video recorders (“PVR”) typically digitally record television content that is received via broadcast, cable, or satellite. PVRs typically record content according to the user's instructions and preferences. PVRs generally have control buttons on a PVR control panel and/or a remote control to provide the user with the ability to select recorded content that the user would like to view, as well as to move forward or backward through such content during playback.
Recently, PVRs have provided the users with features that give the user the option to either view or navigate through content, including commercial advertisements that are typically broadcast in several groups of time during television programming content. These viewing and navigation features have been implemented in PVRs to allow a user to skip through recorded content in timed intervals. For example, in a typical PVR, pressing a forward, or right navigation button (“RNB”), might cause the content to advance 1.5 seconds or 8 seconds, depending on the type of PVR and/or its settings.
The capability of a PVR to allow a user to skip through recorded content in timed intervals assists the user, if they choose, in jumping past content that the user does not wish to view. This ability to skip through unwanted content allows users to reduce the amount of time spent watching unwanted content (e.g., commercial advertisements), and to reach content that the user does wish to view (i.e., program content) more quickly. However, because this current capability uses time segments to allow the user to skip through the unwanted television content, and because time groups of commercial advertisements are not always the same length, to skip through commercial advertisements, the user must either (1) repeatedly press a forward navigation button (RNB) or (2) press a forward navigation button (RNB) at least once to skip over at least all of the commercial advertisement time segment, and then press a backward button (left navigation button (“LNB”)) at least once so to not miss any desired program content.
It would therefore be desirable for a PVR to be able to determine whether sections of recorded content are commercial advertisements or program content, and use such information to divide the recorded content into scenes. A PVR with such a capability may allow a user to skip recorded commercial advertising, for instance, by pressing a single button, without also skipping any program content. For example, it would be desirable to allow a user to skip from scene to scene within recorded content, rather than from a first time segment to a second time segment.